Sat, April 26, 1997

Experimenting with a new tournament format (8 rating events, 1 unrated, and Open), yielded a good turn-out for a closed with over 70 participants. Although some expressed disappointment with the exclusion of age and gender events, the positive side was that all ten events started on or before their scheduled time as this was a one (1) day tournament.

I will attempt to recapture the tournament highlights as I observed them out of the corner of my eye while taking a club umpire exam in between Open event participation.

All events were a round robin format including the finals of each event (except doubles and unrated where one round between participants prevailed).

The Open Singles: In the five round robin groups the No.1 seed from each group advanced with the exception of group 5 where Chris Castro (No.1 seed in group) lost to the second seed Marek Zochowski. An honorable mention must go to new Arizona resident Donald Tillitson for his victory over Marek Zochowski (over 250 point difference) putting himself, Zochowski, and Castro in a three way tie for first place in their group, Zochowski emerging on top by defeating Castro.

In the Open final round robin it was Alex Lai taking it all with his victory over top seed Jim Tarkowski. Third place going to Rob Trudell, fourth place to Hua Heather Wang, and fifth to Marek Zochowski.

U-1800: Winner-Khosro Darroudi, Second place-Derrick Cone, Third place-Ernie Thompson. Upset victory! Alan Newman (1576) over Greg Anderson (1741)

U-1700: Winner-Morris Leichter, Second Place-Paul Campbell, Third Place-Don Tillitson.

U-1600: Winner-Alan Newman, Second Place-Randy Hostettler, Third Place- Mario Lorenc.

U-1500: Winner- Marques Dillard, Second Place-Ken Hoover, Third Place-Len Winkler.

U-1400: Winner-Ken Hoover, Second Place-Tim Peterson, Third Place-Len Winkler,

U-1300: Winner-Sam Edirisooriya, Second Place-Keith Cabatana, Third Place-Bill Pappas.

U-1100: Winner-Juan Kingsbury, Second Place-Randy Rainbolt, Third Place-Tom Kozoil.

U-3300 Dlbs. Winner-Rob Trudell & Matt Winkler.

Unrated singles: Winner-Wai Tang, Second Place-Glenn Wambold, Third Place-Rajkumar Khandelwal.

Of special interest! Exhibition appearance by Jim Butler and Scott Preiss during half time show America West Arena Phoenix Suns Basketball final! Jim Butler graciously remained an additional two days to give coaching lessons locally and a special guest appearance at our fifth annual Grand Canyon State Games commissioners luncheon.

Special thanks to promoter Randy Snow for making this possible!